Add face/lips animation in a skin/model.

[Thunderbird]

Hello everyone!

 

I did browse on some topics if question has already been asked. It seems not.

 

I'm working on some kind of visual project where characters would speak to each other (lip animation with voiceover made by me and friends). I got a model of yoda for example but when I taunt/use voice chat to make him speak, his lips are not moving. Do I need a program I need to work on to make his lips moving, for Mac?

Thank you   .

[Ramikad]

I'm not sure if voice chats make the player model move his lips, but tendentially taunts should make them move. If not, I think the only solution would be to rig the lips vertexes to the related bones. If you know what you're doing, you can achieve that moderately easily with 3DS Max or Blender.

[Cerez]

If the sound file is scripted to be sounded on the NPC's voice channel (in an "affect"), the NPC will move their lips to it when the audio plays. The only exception is when the character model has not had their mouth rigged. Try it with my Ahsoka model. I've made sure to rig the mouth and face in detail for this purpose (cinematics). Another good one for testing this is Slaughter's Alaora (a good skin for the default Raven twi'lek). All of @Hapslash's and @@DT85's popular models also have proper mouth rigging.

[Archangel35757]

@@eezstreet and I are working on a project to bring modern lip-sync with all visemes and ability to vary facial expressions-- which include presets for a progression of 6 basic emotions:

 

Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger, Surprise, Disgust

 

See our related threads in the JK Enhanced forum.

[Thunderbird]

I'm not sure if voice chats make the player model move his lips, but tendentially taunts should make them move. If not, I think the only solution would be to rig the lips vertexes to the related bones. If you know what you're doing, you can achieve that moderately easily with 3DS Max or Blender.

 

My project started in August and VoiceChat do make player model move lips, I can confirm. Same for taunts and no-clip taunts. Therefore, I am far from being an expert in modeling. Just opened the humanoid gla file in Blender and the whole skeleton appeared, I guess that's a good start.

 

If the sound file is scripted to be sounded on the NPC's voice channel (in an "affect"), the NPC will move their lips to it when the audio plays. The only exception is when the character model has not had their mouth rigged. Try it with my Ahsoka model. I've made sure to rig the mouth and face in detail for this purpose (cinematics). Another good one for testing this is Slaughter's Alaora (a good skin for the default Raven twi'lek). All of @Hapslash's and @@DT85's popular models also have proper mouth rigging.

 

Indeed, the issue is the mouth not being rigged. The thing is, I need this yoda model (VMYoda) to move his lips for some scenes. I'll have a close look at Blender.

 

@@eezstreet and I are working on a project to bring modern lip-sync with all visemes and ability to vary facial expressions-- which include presets for a progression of 6 basic emotions:

 

Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger, Surprise, Disgust

 

See our related threads in the JK Enhanced forum.

 

Nice, this is very great hard work already. Good Luck!

[DT.]

Also make sure the yoda model has mouth weights by checking it out in modview and playing the FACE animations.

[Cerez]

Indeed, the issue is the mouth not being rigged. The thing is, I need this yoda model (VMYoda) to move his lips for some scenes. I'll have a close look at Blender.

If you are intent on using that particular model, then you'll have to do some kitbashing/modelling magic yourself. You can import the model, preserving its UV maps and weights, into Blender using the appropriate plugins, and then you can add a mouth from one of the Raven models, and see if you can slice open and re-weight the mouth without any bugs jumping in your way.

 

Feel free to study my Ahsoka, or any other character model to see how the face is weighted (to which bones). I won't say this will be easy to do. In my experience, to do this properly for cinematics it's anything but quick and easy.

 

Alternatively, I think @Toshi's Yoda has a moving mouth if I'm not mistaken: http://jkhub.org/files/file/1005-toshis-yoda/

[Thunderbird]

Also make sure the yoda model has mouth weights by checking it out in modview and playing the FACE animations.

 

I can't import the model in mod view for anything in the world (Different error messages coming after I try to fix the problem) but I might have checked it in another way: I went in game and did FACE animations by typing debugsetbodyanim commands. the model seems not to to anything (ex: /debugsetbodyanim FACE_DEAD, yoda does not close his eyes, unlike every other models). I suppose that means it has no weights in face at all. I'm up for a bit of hard work then!

 

If you are intent on using that particular model, then you'll have to do some kitbashing/modelling magic yourself. You can import the model, preserving its UV maps and weights, into Blender using the appropriate plugins, and then you can add a mouth from one of the Raven models, and see if you can slice open and re-weight the mouth without any bugs jumping in your way.

 

Feel free to study my Ahsoka, or any other character model to see how the face is weighted (to which bones). I won't say this will be easy to do. In my experience, to do this properly for cinematics it's anything but quick and easy.

 

Alternatively, I think @Toshi's Yoda has a moving mouth if I'm not mistaken: http://jkhub.org/files/file/1005-toshis-yoda/

 

Downloaded Ahsoka, but I can't seem to import the glm in blender, I can import the gla skeleton, but when I want to import the glm model, is says, "no gla?". I downloaded the Jedi Academy plugin and activated it though. Is there a glm import plugin I should install?

[Asgarath83]

If you are using the yoda model used for mod Escape from yavin 4 the lost maps... this not have anykind of facial animation.

:\

for edit a model already rigged on blender you need blender 2.64 with the blender plug in suite. you should be able to import a glm model and also, preserving his rigging. so you can add facial rig and re exporting, i think. also 3d max can import a glm with the correct plug in, but for what i know you lose the rigging information and you need to importe the JKA skeleton, scaling model, align to skeleton and remake all rig stuff work >.<

then export into XSI format and build the new glm with carcass.

[Thunderbird]

I have been looking around but it seems I can't import any .glm anywhere. Not in mod view, nor in blender. I tried with ahsoka model in order to study the weights but that same no Gla ? message appears. Even after downloading Blender 2.64 and the plugin and following the steps of Vezon in here in the comments.

[Cerez]

Sorry it took me a while to answer. I didn't have my other computer at hand to check. I have version 2.68 of Blender working with @@mrwonko's plugin suite.

 

To bypass the "no .gla" error message, all you have to do is copy the "_humanoid" folder to your working "base" folder, as shown here:

 

 

Then, in the plugin's settings (when you select File > Import > JA Ghoul 2 model) make sure to scroll down in the left pane, and in the empty field where it says "Base path" copy and paste (or enter) the path to your working "base" folder (e.g. "Users/Cerez/Desktop/base/"). This way the plugin will know where to look for the "_humanoid/_humanoid.gla" file. Then select your intended GLM in the file selector, and click import. Voila.

[mrwonko]

Then, in the plugin's settings (when you select File > Import > JA Ghoul 2 model) make sure to scroll down in the left pane, and in the empty field where it says "Base path" copy and paste (or enter) the path to your working "base" folder (e.g. "Users/Cerez/Desktop/base/"). This way the plugin will know where to look for the "_humanoid/_humanoid.gla" file. Then select your intended GLM in the file selector, and click import. Voila.

FWIW, as anyone who read the manual knows, if your basepath includes a GameData folder, the importer will be able to figure the rest out automatically.

[Thunderbird]

Sorry it took me a while to answer. I didn't have my other computer at hand to check. I have version 2.68 of Blender working with @@mrwonko's plugin suite.

 

To bypass the "no .gla" error message, all you have to do is copy the "_humanoid" folder to your working "base" folder, as shown here:

 

 

Then, in the plugin's settings (when you select File > Import > JA Ghoul 2 model) make sure to scroll down in the left pane, and in the empty field where it says "Base path" copy and paste (or enter) the path to your working "base" folder (e.g. "Users/Cerez/Desktop/base/"). This way the plugin will know where to look for the "_humanoid/_humanoid.gla" file. Then select your intended GLM in the file selector, and click import. Voila.

 

Worked like a charm, thanks! . Already looked around nice tutorials, ready for the exploration!

 

FWIW, as anyone who read the manual knows, if your basepath includes a GameData folder, the importer will be able to figure the rest out automatically.

 

Yep, skipped the base path part for GLM import. That little detail that made the difference! For Mac users though (who read this) it works differently because everything that is mod/skins/map related should not be dropped into the Applications/JediAcademy/Gamedata folder but somewhere else...

 

Thank you all already

[Thunderbird]

Okay, after some studying here's about the tiny slice of mouth :

 

Not the best, but for the sake of testing. I read manual to be able to export the .glm into model folder and drag it do the base JKA folder. Yoda shows up in game with that slice (fist pump). Now onto the face weights, after looking at some animations tutorials, it's all about the bones right?

[Cerez]

Now onto the face weights, after looking at some animations tutorials, it's all about the bones right?

Yepp. Load a Raven model in and have a look at which bones around the face what parts of the face mesh are weighted to, and to what extent. You'll need to play around with the weighting to get it to behave right with most facial expressions in the game. The beginning few frames of the default animations in ModView help to judge it as they are stretching the mouth to extremes.

 

Of course, you'll need to also add a 'mouth box' from one of the Raven models, which will be what the player sees as the inside of the mouth when the character opens their mouth, and weight this, too, to the right facial bones, so that it opens with the mouth movement.

[Thunderbird]

Yepp. Load a Raven model in and have a look at which bones around the face what parts of the face mesh are weighted to, and to what extent. You'll need to play around with the weighting to get it to behave right with most facial expressions in the game. The beginning few frames of the default animations in ModView help to judge it as they are stretching the mouth to extremes.

 

Of course, you'll need to also add a 'mouth box' from one of the Raven models, which will be what the player sees as the inside of the mouth when the character opens their mouth, and weight this, too, to the right facial bones, so that it opens with the mouth movement.

 

Thank you for the answer @@Cerez, I can quite put my finger on it!

 

I loaded Kyle model in Modview, It seems mouth has 4 bones, ltlip, blip, rtlip and blip, maybe the jaw should be involved too.

 

I noticed in mod view that the first 18 frames of the animations list are the head anims, (FACE_ALERT being the first one with frames 0 and 1) so once in Blender, I imported the kyle model with its first 18 frames starting from 0 and I saw how bones move the triangles depending on the animations I played.

 

Then I imported the yoda model in Blender with the frames. Indeed, no face movement when playing the anims, but the bones move like kyle or ahsoka. How do I assign bones to the meshes in Blender?

 

I also noticed, the yoda model misses the head_face and head_eyes_mouth surfaces compared to other models.

[Cerez]

You'll need to separate those meshes out from the head mesh and name them as such (head_face, head_eyes_mouth), and then re-weight them:

 

 

These new meshes will also need to be placed under "head" in the hierarchy tree of the model.

 

Important: Do NOT move the bones of the skeleton!

[Thunderbird]

Errrm, not weighting yet.   I am getting some trouble with the separation of mesh, the head_face and head_eyes_mouth, I can do it and the result is quite fine, but when I export it to see how it would look like in game, lots of things are messed up. When I load the glm back in blender with the mouth slice and the meshes separation, it shows part of the objects normally and the rest is in a very huge size and the hierarchy tree is messed up.

 

What it looks like after modification (mesh separation and mouth box added), before exporting in .glm

 

When importing the modified .glm

 

The 3D view

 

The error code seems weird, searched it on google but nothing seems to help yet. Trying to get to Blender manual, I don't see where I did wrong.  @@mrwonko ?

[mrwonko]

That's Blender 2.76 - I've not tested any version beyond 2.69.

[Thunderbird]

I had the same thing with 2.64, so I changed with a more recent one, doesn't seem to solve it. Looks like the huge meshes just got big-sized during the import, there are maybe 2 or 3 meshes missing too, hard to tell. The face_head mesh I made became the head one for no reason, while the actual head mesh is gone. I suggest the issue is in the way I did export, although I did read the manual.

[Thunderbird]

Well, the project I am in, includes scenes of a Ghost Yoda (I already did the ghost shader). I decided to use Toshi's yoda, but the problem with this model is that when spawn him as a npc for the scenes he looks like this:

 

 

 

 

Yes, there's a lightsaber inside his stomach. It would not look cool on screen... Here's what I did:

 

-Remove every single file that is related to that custom saber. But in game there is now another hilt inside his stomach.

-Tried to change the npc file from weapon WP_SABER to WP_NONE, but in game, Yoda has a blaster, still inside his stomach.

[CommanderXeph]

Changing the npc name to Elder_Yoda should make him have no weapons.

[Jolly]

Might be a tagging issue. 

[Thunderbird]

Changing the npc name to Elder_Yoda should make him have no weapons.

Unfortunately, he still has that blaster inside his stomach, it's really weird.

 

Might be a tagging issue. 

 

Do you mean an issue with the way the model was made? Issue with tag surface?

[CommanderXeph]

How did you make Toshi's Yoda look like a ghost btw? I want to do it for my series too (except not for  Yoda).